Customer Experience

By Liam Dowd - November 5th, 2014

How Facebook is the powerhouse for referrals, consumer holiday season behaviour and the continued dominance of video marketing.

Facebook continues to drive referrals

• For most publishers, marketers and site owners, the five remaining social networks are forgettable sources of traffic. Collectively, they contributed 0.74% of overall traffic sites received last month, which is less than the number of visits Twitter alone sent.
• Over the past 13 months, StumbleUpon’s share of traffic peaked at 0.99%, in March 2014, and last month sunk to a low of 0.41%. Year-over-year, its share decreased 26.49% (a loss of 0.15 percentage points) down from 0.56%.
• Comparing September 2013 to September 2014, Reddit’s share went from 0.26% to 0.18%. Shrinking 30.56%, Reddit lost 0.08 percentage points.
• Google Plus may still live on. In fact, in the last year, it saw modest gains, increasing its share of traffic 57.02% (0.03 percentage points) to 0.07% last month, up from 0.04% during the same time last year.
• YouTube was the biggest loser. Shedding 87.27% of its weight (0.25 percentage points), it once claimed 5th place above Reddit but now ties for 7th with LinkedIn. In September 2013, YouTube drove 0.29% of overall traffic to sites. Last month, it only drove 0.04%.
• While LinkedIn has become a publishing powerhouse, it sends a comparatively low number of social referrals to sites across the web. In September 2014, LinkedIn accounted for 0.04% of overall traffic to sites, down 47.37% (0.03 percentage points) from the same time last year.
• Shareaholic said: “A quick glance at historical data tells us that over the past 13 months, both Facebook and Pinterest have demonstrated the powerful potential of their respective platforms to marketers, publishers and site owners.
• “Year-over-year, only 3 social networks (Facebook, Pinterest and Google Plus) saw their “share of traffic” grow. Each experienced at least a 50% bump in share of visits over the past 13 months. The remaining 5 (Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, YouTube, and LinkedIn) saw their shares decline by more than 24%.”

Video marketing becomes a powerful weapon

Video content as all corporations now appreciate is the most shared type of content across the social media networks. The B2B sector is becoming particularly active taking its lead from B2C marketers. According to the latest research from Social Media Examiner more than a third of marketers (35%) are planning on using short form video as part of their marketing. And 73% marketers plan to increase their use of original videos.

Other research into video sharing behaviour is just as telling with 72% of respondents use YouTube for their marketing according to ExactTarget’s 2014 State of Marketing survey. With the B2B Video Benchmarking report concluding that over 70% of respondents claim that video performs better than other content for producing conversions.

Clearly video continues to dominate how marketers intend to expand and extend their reach across the social media space. Corporations without a video marketing strategy for next year will lose ground to their competitors. Where video marketing was once a luxury, it’s now a necessity.

Social logins stay loyal to Facebook

The latest research from Gigya illustrates that social login is a powerful tool that all corporations can leverage across their businesses. Consumers clearly favour Facebook no matter their geographical location with 80% of Europeans using Facebook as their preferred login mechanism. The ease with which social login enables seamless communication with consumers isn’t lost on brand owners that continue to offer this method of relationship building.

Gigya commented: “Facebook’s majority position seems to have been solidified by the company’s recent changes to Facebook Login, which now includes line-by-line controls for users when they choose to log into sites and apps with their Facebook credentials.

“Google/Google+ saw a slight decrease overall, but made critical gains in mobile, while Twitter broached double-digits in login percentage for the first time in more than a year. Also of note, login with Amazon gained its highest percentage of logins since launching in May 2013.”

For corporations these statistics speak volumes about how consumers what to connect with their businesses. Place too many barriers in their way will result in them clicking to another business. Paying close attention to how social login is implemented across your business’ web presence is then a commercial imperative no corporation can ignore.

Holiday shopping insights

A survey of over 1,000 shoppers by PunchTab reveals that this Christmas should be a bumper year with key groups such as the millennials, baby boomer and gen X’s intending to spend the same or more this year.

The PunchTab report finds that this year, nearly 77% of consumers across all demographic groups plan to spend the same or more on holiday shopping. Despite this, more than 58% of holiday shopping dollars are up for grabs, with most shoppers either undecided or likely to spend 50% or less at the same stores they purchased from last year.

Among social networks specifically, Facebook was the most likely to be used for deciding on gifts, with 19% of all consumers turning to the network this holiday season. Pinterest (14%) and YouTube (7%) followed. Almost 50% of Millennials will use some social media channel. Nearly 70% of older generations will not use any social media channels Women are more likely than men to use Pinterest.

In a related survey, Deloitte discovered 72% of respondents use social media sites. Among these respondents, 45% plan to use these social media sites during their holiday shopping process in a variety of ways with getting gift ideas, locating discounts and sakes information and review or recommendations leading how social media would be used.

"Consumers continue to hit retailers harder than ever this holiday shopping season," said Robyn Hannah, VP, PR and Communications at PunchTab. "It isn't as easy as 'opening the doors' and cashing in on that increased interest, however. It's become mission critical for retailers to understand how increased consumer demand falls between different consumer segments -- from where they want to shop to how they are using smartphones. Data is the key to ensuring retailers can stay top of mind with the consumer mindset, allowing them to align their marketing efforts with changes in purchase behaviour."

Until next time….

The Useful Social Media team.